Black Flame (6 page)

Everything in the courtyard was still.

Evening set in, and the old man's chair creaked as he sat up. Kelsang once again grew anxious, but the man just picked up his watering can and drifted back indoors. After a while, the door opened again, and he emerged carrying a bowl. He shuffled toward Kelsang and put it down in front of him before going back inside.

It was
tsampa
barley flour mixed with salty butter tea.

After Kelsang had finished, he looked up and saw a light shining from the second floor. As the courtyard door was open, he decided to take a walk. It was like being back on the grasslands. It was late, and there was no one about, so he stepped out of his alley into the next street. He walked even farther, crossing different alleys, and slowly approached Barkhor Street, which lay in the shadow of the Potala Palace.

Visible in the light of the summer moon were pilgrims who had come thousands of miles to prostrate themselves on the gray stones at this holy site. A sound like the patter of falling rain accompanied the methodical rise and fall of their bodies as their leather aprons slapped against the stones, which had been rubbed to a high gloss.

Kelsang was happy in the darkness. Temptation called to him, and he began to run, gliding like a spirit through dark recesses beyond the reach of moonlight. Even those most sensitive to their surroundings felt only the passing of a shadow as he ran by. A day of proper rest and a hearty bowl of food had restored his energy. All he wanted was to run through the narrow alleys and empty streets.

Kelsang suddenly slowed. The wind carried the smell of a pilgrim up ahead. As soon as the smell hit his nose, it awoke the memory of the distant grasslands in him once again. He stood in a corner inaccessible to the moon's rays and watched.

The pilgrim was moving along Barkhor Street with particular devotion, his hands pressed together in prayer, lifting his head and then laying himself flat upon the ground before standing up, taking a step and repeating the movements all over again. He was wrapped in a sheepskin robe that had become black and shiny with wear. His whole body gleamed in the moonlight like a rounded piece of stone.

To Kelsang, this man was the grasslands, and he could no longer control himself. He approached slowly and drew near before the man saw him. But the man's call was completely different from Master's, with a strange edge to it that cooled Kelsang's burning heart. He looked at the man's face covered in beads of sweat, and ignoring his calls, retreated into the dark.

Kelsang spent the entire night running around, blinded by his disappointment. People walking the streets only caught a glimpse of a gigantic black shadow flashing past before he disappeared around a corner.

“Must be seeing things,” some of them mumbled to themselves.

Just as day was about to break, a hot, energetic Kelsang slipped into an alley behind the temple. He discovered it was a dead end and turned around. He should probably go back to the courtyard, he thought. The running had put him into a kind of trance, which tricked him into feeling soft grass beneath his paws.

A smudge of downy shadows had gathered at the entrance to the alley. The dawn light catching on their silhouettes made them sparkle like a glacier. The grass beneath Kelsang's feet instantly turned back to stone, bringing him out of his trance. He came to a stop, his breathing light, his rib cage rising and falling rhythmically.

A rabble of twenty dogs blocked his way up ahead, their eyes shining like wolves in the night. Kelsang was used to living on his own in the grasslands. He had never been around so many dogs of different shapes and colors, nor was he interested in them. The sky was growing light, he was losing his cover, and all he wanted to do was return to the painter's courtyard.

But just as Kelsang was about to charge through them onto the main street, the dogs began to bark, creating a terrifying cacophony. They may not have been strong, but their barking reverberated around the alley like a tidal wave.

Encouraged by their own din, they swarmed toward the hapless intruder. They were no longer the charming, gentle-looking dogs who lay around the temples in the daytime. They jostled together like a cluster of hairy spiders baring sharp teeth. There were so many of them, they had to run in two or three rows to fit into the narrow lane. Yet despite their crazed barking and dripping saliva, they didn't charge at him. It simply wasn't a suitable location to launch such an attack.

Kelsang was amazed — the tallest among them only came up to his chest. Could they really be making this earth-shattering sound? What surprised him even more was that the three strongest dogs at the front didn't understand even the basics of how to protect themselves. He could see at least five vulnerable spots, and yet they continued to thrust their faces forward, seemingly oblivious to the danger they were in. Kelsang was sure he could bite through the front leg of their leader, a blond lionesque dog.

A feeling of superiority washed over him as he watched the mindless barking mutts. He knew if any of them were to face a wolf out on the grasslands, they would be killed in a single chomp. These dogs were all bark and no bite, and they bored him.

Tilting his shoulder downward, he walked into the blond dog at the front as he prepared to leave the alley. The dog made no move to counterattack and screeched in pain.

But Kelsang was being careless, and a black-and-white dog, perhaps itself descended from a Tibetan mastiff, suddenly appeared at his side and tore into his shoulder. Kelsang's muscles tightened and turned as hard as stone, but he felt nothing beneath his long fur.

Even so, he roared with anger like a lion disturbed during his feed. The other dog realized what a formidable opponent he was before it had even spat out the mouthful of fur. Kelsang was clearly no ordinary neighborhood dog.

Kelsang easily knocked the black-and-white dog back into place. He barely had to make an effort as he sank his teeth into its neck, breaking it with just two sharp shakes. He tossed the floppy dog aside, the blood reminding him of his nights killing wolves. His desire to fight was like a wild fire spreading through his veins. Fear made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, and from deep in his throat he let out a bloodthirsty roar.

The city dogs had never seen a massacre like this before. They usually only had to gang up on an intruding dog and knock it around a bit. They were scared senseless. A small bitch approached the dead dog and whimpered sorrowfully, while the others stood rooted to the spot, unsure what to do. One of them howled and turned away.

Then the dogs fled in every direction, like a river flooding over broken banks, leaving the blood-soaked corpse behind. Kelsang had once again demonstrated the undeniable superiority of his breed.

The sounds of early risers opening their front doors began to fill the alleyway. Kelsang licked the drying blood from the corner of his mouth and left. When he got back to the courtyard, the door was still open, and all was quiet inside. He snuck in and lay down in his corner.

A young girl entered the courtyard that afternoon, when the sun was at its strongest. Kelsang had heard her turn into the alley and pricked up his ears, wondering if she was going to come in.

He had already begun to think of the courtyard as his own. It was still unfamiliar in some ways, but his instincts were telling him to protect it — the instincts that had been given to him by his ancestors. He had been away from the camp for so long that the courtyard had become its replacement. Kelsang imagined that he had always guarded this camp. He had no interest in the actual campsite or the sheep on it. He was driven by instinct — that was all — and this courtyard was the painter's camp.

Kelsang watched as a pair of leather shoes stepped across the threshold before jumping to his feet. He took up his position by the door and growled. He wasn't going to let the girl come in.

A scream as sharp as broken glass. The girl jumped back down the steps and ran out into the alleyway.

Even though he had successfully prevented her from coming in, Kelsang waited with some trepidation for the painter to appear. He barked, his eyes fixed on the door of the two-story red house. Had he done the right thing? He wasn't sure, and he didn't know what to do next. If he had been on the grasslands, his master, Tenzin, would have come out of the yurt and tied him up to the wooden post.

The sound of a door opening. The old man stood in the doorway holding a paintbrush. It had taken great effort to tear his attention away from the colorful painting he had been working on. He seemed confused. Perhaps he was trying to remember if Kelsang was in fact his dog.

“Granddad, get rid of it!” The girl in the alley had also caught sight of the old man.

The painter's lips twitched. “It's okay.”

Having expected this moment, the hair on the back of Kelsang's neck settled down, and he stalked back to his corner. Even though the old man's face was as expressionless as stone, Kelsang sensed that he had done the right thing. Feeling happy with himself, he lay down, but his fiery red eyes were still fixed on the young girl leaning through the courtyard door.

“Granddad, where did you find it?” The girl came in. She was carrying a small knapsack, and she cowered behind the old man, looking at Kelsang.

“He found me.”

The painter's granddaughter, Drolma, came once a week to see him. Kelsang could detect the smells of food and pigments coming from her bag.

The next time she came to visit, Kelsang put up only a symbolic show of resistance, standing by the door and growling sluggishly, more as a way of letting the old man know that she had arrived than anything else. After leading Drolma into the courtyard, he went back to his corner.

Kelsang seemed to interest Drolma more than he did her grandfather. She tried feeding him a piece of dried meat directly from her hand, but it turned out to be a tiring process for both of them. Kelsang may have come to see her as part of the old man's property, but he still couldn't let down his guard completely. Drolma was equally cautious as she approached the huge dog, but she was determined nevertheless.

Not knowing what to do, Kelsang watched her edge toward him, crossing over the imaginary boundary he usually kept against strangers. The meat brushed up against his nose, but still he didn't move. Drolma was so nervous, her nose was dotted with beads of sweat. She bent down and placed the meat in Kelsang's metal bowl.

Then she went up to the second-floor balcony, which was so crammed with flowers it was like standing in a small flowerpot. She could see that the meat had disappeared, but Kelsang was lying in just the same position, as if he had never moved.

“Granddad, does the dog just lie there all day? Doesn't he ever go out?”

“I've never seen him move,” the old painter answered, his eyes fixed on his latest
tanka
.

Of course Kelsang went out, but the old man just didn't know it. Every day when he went to water the flowers on his balcony, before he let his gaze wander up to the golden roof of the Potala Palace, he would look down on the dog below, lying motionless in the corner. Occasionally, the old man would muster a rare moment of energy and call out to Kelsang, rousing him from what appeared to be a deep sleep. Kelsang would jump up, run to the house and stare up at him, his amber eyes glinting in the sunlight. Not knowing what to do next, the old man would respond, “It's okay,” and Kelsang would trot back to his corner, thudding back to the ground.

The next time the old painter went to feed Kelsang, he left him a
kha gdan
, a handmade Tibetan mat.

When night fell, and the roar of traffic and commotion on the street subsided, Kelsang would rouse from his deep sleep and look up, his eyes burning furiously in the dark. He would walk out of the courtyard door — the old man never closed the door — into the silent streets of Lhasa spread out beneath his feet.

Ever since he lost his job tending the sheep on the grasslands, Kelsang took to running aimlessly through the streets with an almost mad passion, trying to expend the energy he stored up during the day. His running began to take on a particular pattern, following a series of circles emanating from the painter's courtyard. After finishing one circuit, Kelsang would go back to the courtyard and look up at the silhouette of the painter in the second-floor window, where he often stood painting through the night, just to check that all was well before starting on a new circuit.

In the years that followed, Kelsang became a legend among the pilgrims of Lhasa, who honed their descriptions of the dark shadow they encountered and spread their stories far and wide. A pair of eyes watched them as they spun their prayer wheels and prostrated themselves on the cold paving stones around Jokhang Temple, but they weren't sure what it was, and it was gone by the time they looked up.

Kelsang would gaze with affection at the herdsmen draped in thick fur-lined robes who traveled here from the distant grasslands. But he always did so from deep in dark corners, and as soon as the men sensed he was there, he ran away.

He encountered many small dogs on his explorations of the city, but since none was a match for him, he almost never slowed down, preferring instead to breeze by. He once bit two dogs who tried to pick fights with him, and after that, the other dogs fled as soon as they saw him coming. But this was Lhasa, a place where anything could happen. No one could guarantee that there wasn't an even more exceptional mastiff in another courtyard somewhere. Kelsang was not invincible.

One coal-black night, Kelsang came across his first real opponent since leaving the grasslands. He left the courtyard, as usual, and started to trot around the city. As his body began to warm up, he spotted a silvery gray wolfhound flickering in the evening light up ahead. He slowed down. Was it a German shepherd, a mastiff or a St. Bernard?

The wolfhound had no intention of running away and stared as Kelsang approached, its eyes fluorescent with purpose, like a wolf stalking a sheep. This dog was different from the yappy ones Kelsang had encountered recently. Growling softly, the wolfhound raised its head and started to walk forward in a determined fashion, its tail as erect as a tree trunk. Its lips were pulled back to reveal a set of sharp white teeth, its wolverine ears were pressed close to its head, and its red eyes were fixed fearlessly on Kelsang. It looked even bigger than the mastiff.